I mentioned yesterday that we had set up our first-ever outdoor nativity scene. Very simple.

You may have seen that Pope Francis is encouraging people to display such a scene. You don’t have to be Catholic to appreciate what he said. Here are some snippets:

[The scene] is a genuine way of communicating the gospel, in a world that sometimes seems to be afraid of remembering what Christmas really is and eliminates Christian symbols, only to retain those drawn from a banal, commercial imagination.

I wish to encourage the beautiful family tradition of preparing the nativity scene in the days before Christmas, but also the custom of setting it up in the workplace, in schools, hospitals, prisons and town squares. It is my hope that this custom will never be lost and that, wherever it has fallen into disuse, it can be rediscovered and revived.

It shows God’s tender love by placing the mystery of the divine within an ordinary setting…The lowly setting of Christ’s birth summons us to follow him along the path of humility, poverty and self-denial that leads from the manger of Bethlehem to the cross.

I was encouraged while I was delivering invitations door-to-door for an upcoming neighborhood Christmas gathering: two of my neighbors commented specifically on the manger scene. “I like your display.” I responded, “It’s the message we wanted to convey.”

In short, displaying the nativity is one more way to carry on the “resistance” we’ve been discussing. Or, to use other terminology: it’s another way to create a “holy moment.”

It started when God said, “Light up the darkness!” and our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ, all bright and beautiful. (2 Corinthians 4.6, MSG)

This is what you’re to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2.12, MSG)

And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2.12, ESV)

I always wondered, “Where was the sign?” But a baby in a feeding trough IS a sign! It’s not every day that you find a newborn baby in a stable. This had to be unique even in those days. 

It goes with the no status that I wrote about yesterday. The sign for the shepherds wasn’t the star even though our new outdoor nativity set (the first we’ve ever displayed) does have a star! The star was for the wise men who came later to a different place. The sign was just the baby himself, born in a barn(!). (That gives new meaning to the old expression, doesn’t it?)

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7.14, ESV)

I’m still thinking about the Advent imagery of a subversive operation as I wrote yesterday about the Italian resistance during World War 2. Often we want to recruit (or be recruited for) something with status and position. Jesus didn’t come with position, like someone, say, born into a royal family. And he doesn’t offer us a position either. When Paul was “advancing” it was in Judaism (see Galatians 1.14). When Jesus came, who were the first people to recognize him? All people without status:

• Shepherds
• Simeon
• Anna
• Even the magi had no status in Israel

That Jesus was coming to establish an “underground” movement is clear from the beginning. He had no status. His witnesses had no status. His early followers had no status.

The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus. (Acts 4.13, NLT)

I wrote yesterday that God is at work behind the scenes, and this is no more evident than at this time of year when we celebrate Advent: the coming of Jesus into the world. One of the recurring themes of scripture is that of war: war between the forces of evil and the forces of good. It’s been going on since Genesis 3.

I recently read a compelling historical novel, Once Night Falls, on the Italian resistance in northern Italy during World War 2. It’s the story of a few people, ordinary people, doing what they could against the Nazi occupation.

• An overweight priest acted as courier for a bishop who was also part of the resistance
• A middle-aged playboy with an American car also was a courier
• A woman hid her Jewish friend in her attic and later poisoned the German soldiers she was forced to cook for. She died with them.
• A young Italian man with one good arm, killed a German operative amidst other errands he was running for the resistance. He helped his Jewish fiancé out of the country into Switzerland, while he stayed behind to fight

God has set his resistance movement in motion, a movement that defeated Satan at the cross and will ultimately defeat all evil (read Revelation: God wins!). Along the way, he recruited people for this movement. Zechariah and Elizabeth to beget John the Baptist, Mary to bear the Christ child, Joseph to protect her, and on it goes.

Someone has written:

Jesus has come to undo the consequences of evil and to establish the kingdom of God.  I know that, even though Jesus is calling the whole world, he is beckoning me in a special way to respond to that call to work for the kingdom.

How will I respond?

And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1.38, ESV)

While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. (Matthew 4.18 – 20, ESV)

I’m starting to read Adventures of a Computational Explorer by Stephen Wolfram, architect of Mathematica, robust software for mathematicians. This sentence in the Preface caught my eye:

But what I’ve come to realize–particularly having embraced the computational paradigm–is that the same intellectual thought processes can be applied not just to what one thinks of as science, but to pretty much anything.

It reminded me of something Dr. Terry Perciante, a chaos theory expert at Wheaton College shared a number of years ago. Terry showed us this figure, which I found out later is known as the Sierpinski Triangle:

It’s an infinitely continuing figure in which every blue triangle of any size has a hole in its center. What is interesting about this is that the figure is not produced by carefully drawing all the little triangles. It is produced by a very simple random process. God is at work behind the scenes bringing order out of chaos. Terry says that God’s sovereignty is cast against a background of turbulence.

I thought of the early church, described succinctly as:

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people…And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.(Acts 2.42, 46, 47, ESV)

God added to their number! God is building the church:

Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2.19 – 22, NKJV)

And the church looks like He wants it to look! The Sierpinski Triangle is composed of thousands of randomly distributed points. We never know where the next point is going to go and which point will be “next” to it later on in the process.

My point (no pun intended!) is that the triangle is not produced by copying a particular structure but by setting in motion a process. Jesus chose 12, invested in them for a few years and left. The Apostle Paul did the same.

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2.2, NIV)

And Paul reminded church leaders that their job is to do the same: equip the people to do the work:

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4.11 – 13, NIV)

It’s my birthday today, born on Friday, December 13, 1946. It’s my 10th birthday (after 1946) to fall on a Friday. Every day/date combination comes around four times every 28 years.

It’s amazing to me that in a society as technologically advanced as ours that 13 is considered an “unlucky” number and Friday 13th is considered an unlucky day. In China, they are afraid of the number 4. We were on an elevator in a Hong Kong hotel that had 26 floors. Well, not really. The top floor was called 26, but there was no 4th floor, no 14th floor, no 24th floor, and, for the sake of the westerners, no 13th floor!

If you think about it, Jesus and the 12 constituted a group of 13! Here’s da Vinci’s famous painting: count ‘em! 

So have a good day! I intend to.

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118.24, ESV)

Glen Eyrie is the conference center of The Navigators, originally built by the founder of Colorado Springs, General William Palmer. The story of The Navigators’ making the original downpayment of $108,000 back in 1953 is an inspiration in itself. Since then the castle and grounds have blessed hundreds of thousands of people, providing a quiet sanctuary to hear the voice of God.

Recently, the local PBS station made a 26-minute video of the past and present of Glen Eyrie. Watch…and then visit us!

[Jesus] said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” (Mark 6.31, NIV)

He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul… (Psalm 23.2, 3, NKJV)

Sometimes we just need to have fun.

June still studies piano and is part of a performance group with her teacher’s other adult students. Once a year they invite their spouses and play Christmas duets. For a number of years, June and her duet partner, Lynn, have closed the program with Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride. This year, for the first time, one of the other student’s husband provided sound effects (except for the last whinny, which was performed by the other student herself). It’s worth a listen at only 3.5 minutes. (I apologize for cutting off the video before the applause and the bows!)

Praise him with the lyre and harp! (Psalm 150.3, ESV)

I’ve been puzzling over Galatians 5.16 – 18 since last June when the Spring Canyon speaker challenged us to memorize verses 16 – 24. I was rocking along with the Holy Spirit versus sinful nature contest just fine until verse 18 dropped the law of Moses into the mix. 

So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses. (Galatians 5.16 – 18, NLT, verse 18 in bold.)

I’ve been asking myself, how did the law get in there, and what does it have to do with anything? I think I’m beginning to see, and it has to do with what I wrote yesterday about “outside the wall” sins and “inside the wall” sins. Verse 18 may be echoing what Paul wrote to the Romans:

For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7.5, 6, ESV, emphasis mine)

Sinful passions aroused by the law: I’m beginning to understand that the law arouses sinful passions in two ways. First, there is the universal human tendency to do what we’re told not to do. “Do not throw rocks at this window!” “Where is a rock that I can throw!?” Paul speaks to this tendency in the last part of Romans 7.

But there is another way that law arouses sinful passions: I can be so rigidly passionate about the law that I am angry or hostile toward those who don’t keep it. Westboro “Baptist” Church is an extreme example. In other words, law brings out those “inside the wall sins” I wrote about yesterday. Saul’s zeal for the law led to his violence toward Christians. Religious leaders crucified Jesus.

So verse 18 may be saying, when you’re directed by the Spirit and not under obligation to the law of Moses (or any other law), you’re free to love and be kind to others even when you don’t like their behavior. 

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5.13, 14, NIV)

I was reading Galatians 5 recently and noticed again the two kinds of sins identified with “the sinful nature” in Galatians 5.19 – 21? 

When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. (NLT, emphases mine)

I’ve been around church people most of my life, and I can tell you we like to look askance at folks who practice the sins I’ve put in italics above: sexual immorality, lustful pleasures, drunkenness, and wild parties occur (hopefully) outside the church walls and are all on the naughty list! But have you ever been in a church meeting where people are arguing about some fine point of theology or practice or debating about the value of a particular church program or even service times? Hostility? Check. Quarreling? Check. Outbursts of anger? Check. Dissension and division? Check and check. 

Sins in bold are on the naughty list too, and they often occur inside the church walls. 

There are several ways to go off the rails. People given to the outside set of behaviors are ignoring or rebelling against God’s word. Church people given to the inside set are working too hard to enforce some perceived aspect of the law. Both are in error. 

The solution?

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! (Galatians 5.22, 23, NLT)

So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires.. [The “outside sins”] … You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander,… [The “inside sins”]…You have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us. Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony… (Colossians 3.5 – 14, NLT)